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The present invention relates to computer systems; more particularly, the present invention relates to voltage regulators for computer systems.
Voltage regulators, such as DC-to-DC converters, are used to provide stable voltage sources for electronic systems. Efficient voltage regulators are particularly needed for battery management in low power devices, such as laptop notebooks and cellular phones. Switching voltage regulators (or xe2x80x9cswitching regulatorsxe2x80x9d) are known to be an efficient type of DC-to-DC converter.
A switching regulator generates an output voltage by converting an input DC voltage into a high frequency voltage, and filtering the high frequency voltage to generate the output DC voltage. Typically, the switching regulator includes a switch for alternately coupling and de-coupling an input DC voltage source, such as a battery, to a load, such as an integrated circuit. An output filter, typically including an inductor and a capacitor, is coupled between the input voltage source and the load to filter the output of the switch and thus provide the output DC voltage.
Voltage regulators for microprocessors are subject to ever more stringent performance requirements. One trend is to increase the switching frequency of the voltage regulator to meet fast current slew rate (e.g., di/dt) demands. However power losses grow almost linearly with the voltage regulator switching frequency. Such power losses have previously caused design difficulties, performance and cost penalties in power distribution and thermal cooling.